bodings.

While they were saying their parting words I slipped out and set my
course for Marget's house to see what was happening there. I met many
people, but none of them greeted me. It ought to have been surprising,
but it was not, for they were so distraught with fear and dread that they
were not in their right minds, I think; they were white and haggard, and
walked like persons in a dream, their eyes open but seeing nothing, their
lips moving but uttering nothing, and worriedly clasping and unclasping
their hands without knowing it.

At Marget's it was like a funeral. She and Wilhelm sat together on the
sofa, but said nothing, and not even holding hands. Both were steeped in
gloom, and Marget's eyes were red from the crying she had been doing.
She said:

"I have been begging him to go, and come no more, and so save himself
alive. I cannot bear to be his murderer. This house is bewitched, and
no inmate will escape the fire. But he will not go, and he will be lost
with the rest."

Wilhelm said he would not go; if there was danger for her, his place was
by her, and there he would remain. Then she began to cry again, and it
was all so mournful that I wished I had stayed away. There was a knock,
now, and Satan came in, fresh and cheery and beautiful, and brought that
winy atmosphere of his and changed the whole thing. He never said a word
about what had been happening, nor about the awful fears which were
freezing the blood in the hearts of the community, but began to talk and
rattle on about all manner of gay and pleasant things; and next about
music--an artful stroke which cleared away the remnant of Marget's